


Physical Therapy

by gettingby



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Made up Magic, Watford Eighth Year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:54:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24350881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gettingby/pseuds/gettingby
Summary: Baz escapes the numpties in time for eighth year, but he doesn't come out unscathed. Simon can't let it go.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 25
Kudos: 278





	Physical Therapy

Baz is plotting again.

I expected it to get worse in eighth year. I know that the Old Families are going to move against the Mage, now that Baz and Dev and the other heirs are coming of age. I also figure that Baz would rather kill me once we’ve graduated from Watford. (If Baz killed me now, he’d probably get expelled, and Penny would top our class.) So I expect that he’s plotting to do something truly awful to me, something that would take a whole year to plan.

I don’t know what to make of this plot, though. Baz didn’t show up to the beginning of the year banquet, just stayed in our room studying. I snooped through his books, because it would be just like him to research dark magic in banned books from the Pitch library while I’m too distracted, stuffing myself. But it was just our Greek textbook, bookmarked way ahead of where we’re going to start this year, and a copy of _Pride and Prejudice,_ which was so boring and old-timey that I stopped at the first page.

I know he must eat sometime, or at least drink blood, so on our second day back, I pretend to be asleep so that I can catch him sneaking out. Except I actually do fall asleep. I have a nightmare about the Humdrum and I wake up in a cold sweat. It’s awful, but it means that I’m awake when Baz sneaks back into the room at four A.M.

I try to accuse him of being a vampire, but he’s too tired to take the bait and falls asleep right away. Even I don’t have the heart to push the argument; we have an 8am class together tomorrow morning.

It’s actually our first class together of the year, nothing this year on Monday or Tuesday, annoyingly. I consider that he did it on purpose to escape my notice, but it’s more likely because he’s more advanced than I am, and the gap between us has grown even more by eighth year. Penny would probably be in more of those classes too, if she didn’t match up our schedules.

I plan to linger in our room on Wednesday morning so I can follow him to class, even if that means forfeiting scones for breakfast, but when I wake up his bed is made and his uniform has disappeared.

I’m a morning person, but Baz has never been an “early bird gets the worm” type. He’s more “late vampire gets the rat”. So I rush down to breakfast and wolf down several scones faster than I even thought was possible, then snoop around the school trying to find him. I walk by our Magic Words classroom at 7:40 and see him at a desk there. 

Napping.

He woke up early, got dressed, snuck out of our room, and got to class twenty minutes early to...sleep more.

I’ll begrudgingly admit that I can be paranoid about Baz. But most of the time, the things that set me off are completely in character. Falling asleep in a classroom is decidedly _not_.

I try to follow him after Magic Words, but it turns out his next class is in the same room, so I linger as long as I can before Penny drags me away. I try to figure out where he is between the rest of our classes, but I don’t manage to catch up with him at all. When I finally see him, it’s through the window during Elocution. He’s heading back to Mummers already, and I have a whole hour of class left.

I’m antsy the rest of the afternoon. I think my magic must be leaking because we’re let out of Elocution early and the professor gives me a nasty glare on my way out.

I don’t have time to worry about that. As soon as I’m out the door, I break into a run.

It doesn’t take me long to get to the football pitch. Tryouts are today, and as team captain, Baz can’t get away from me here.

I’m about fifteen minutes early, and Baz hasn’t arrived yet, but I settle down on the bleachers to wait. When tryouts start, he still isn’t there. I get a strange feeling in my stomach at that, but I try to stay calm. Baz is undeniably cocky - he knows he’s ten times better than any of the other blokes on the team. He could skip half the practices and he’d still be our school’s football star. He’s got insane stamina and dexterity, which I chalk up to him being a vampire. But he’s also incredible at making the split-second strategic decisions that can really decide a match. The fact that he’s such a quick thinker is infuriating normally, but it does make for damn good football.

Coach Mac turns and glares at me as the other blokes start running sprints. “Snow. This is a closed tryout. You can’t stay here unless you’re going out for the team.”

That’s how I end up on the pitch, still in my uniform trousers and undershirt, my shirt and tie left on the bleachers. Running drills with the football team feels good, honestly. I have a lot of pent-up energy from the summer, and sprinting up and down the pitch and trying to keep control of the football is almost as satisfying as practicing with my sword.

I haven’t had the chance to play football in ages, so I have to focus pretty hard on the drills. When practice is finally over, I collapse into the grass of the pitch. My trousers and undershirt are soaked in sweat and covered in grass stains.

That’s when I realize that Baz didn’t show up at all.

I consider summoning the Sword of Mages and going at the goalpost, but I settle for kicking it instead.

The next day, I speed-walk back to Mummers, hoping to catch Baz. Gareth intercepts me, wearing his trainers and athletic getup. “Simon! Wait up! Aren’t you going to footie practice?”

“I’m not on the team,” I answer absentmindedly, squinting at the sun behind the tower, hoping to tell if Baz is there or not. I’m miffed that he managed to avoid me yesterday afternoon.

“What d’you mean you’re not on the team, Simon? You made it - Coach Mac put the roster up this morning.”

I whip my head around. “What? How is that possible? I’m awful at football!”

Gareth shrugs, not disputing my point. “Yeah, but you’ve got raw athleticism, mate. Plus, with Baz out for the season, Mac is desperate for players. We’re well and truly fucked.”

Without thinking, I lunge to grab Gareth by the shoulders. He flinches, but to his credit stands his ground. “Baz is out for the season?”

“How do you not know? You’re his roommate. He came back from the summer with some kind of knee injury. He can’t play at all this year.”

 _Merlin and Morgana_. I push Gareth aside and sprint towards Mummers. How did Baz know that I was going to make the team this year? I didn't even know that. I can’t believe that he’d give up his last year of football to get away from me.

“Simon? Simon! Are you gonna come to practice, mate?”

I ignore him as I dash up the stairs of Mummers. 

Baz isn’t there.

“Simon, it’s the fourth day of classes and you’ve nearly gone through your quota for the _year_ ,” Penny huffs at breakfast. I slather more butter on my scone and stuff it in my mouth, chewing as quickly as possible to get more words out.

“Penny! Don’t you see? He’s faking being hurt so he doesn’t have to be on the team without anyone getting suspicious. So he has more time to plot whatever he’s plotting while I’m otherwise occupied.”

“There is literally no way he could know you’d make the football team, Simon. You haven’t tried out since first year, and that time, you blew a hole in the pitch.” She pauses for a moment, her brow furrowing. “Although, now that you mention it, it is strange for him to have been injured so badly. It happened while he was at home for the summer, and the Grimms are powerful mages. You’d think they’d have patched him up by now.”

“Exactly,” I point out, even though that wasn’t my point at all. (I still think he’s faking.) “Plus, he’s a vampire. If he were hurt, wouldn’t he have healed faster than the rest of us?”

“Yeah,” Penny muses, gazing past me in concentration. “It would have had to be a pretty serious injury. Maybe magickal in origin. Come to think of it, a lot of the boys from the Old Families didn’t even come back this year. I can’t help but feel like it’s all connected.”

 _More proof that he’s faking_ , but I don’t say it. It’s rare enough for Penny to take my Baz theories seriously; I’m not going to fight her on it. “Maybe we should research offensive spells in the library.”

She lights up when I mention the library. “Okay, I’ll meet you there at lunch!”

Penny’s doing most of the reading while we’re at the library; I’m busy wondering what Baz could be plotting. I finally caught him walking into Greek, and he was limping pretty badly. And he was trying to keep a stiff upper lip about it, which means that it’s even worse than it seems.

I don’t think he’s faking anymore, but I’m sure that the injury is tied to something. Maybe a dark magic ritual that went awry? Or a spell so powerful, it draws strength directly from his body?

Before I can tell Penny my theory, she slides her book across the table. “Look at this spell. The recipient is imbued with greater ability to shield offensive spells, in exchange for tissue breakdown around the posterior cruciate ligament…”

The book is written in that old-timey script that gives me a headache. I’m heartened to see that the page has a picture, but then I realize that it’s just a complicated diagram of all the different parts of the knee. Under it, there’s a list of healing spells for knee injuries.

I pull a napkin out of my pocket and start writing.

I don’t tell Penny about my plan, even though we have a no-secrets pact, because she’s just going to tell me why it won’t work. Sure, the Grimms are powerful mages, and Baz is one of the most powerful in his own right, but I’ve got more magic than all of them combined. Even if they couldn’t cast a healing spell that would fix Baz’s knee, I might be able to.

Maybe then Baz would be back on the football team, and I wouldn’t have to worry about what he’s up to for three hours every afternoon. That would be nice. And probably a real blessing to my grades, which are already looking hopeless one week into the semester.

If Baz’s knee were back to normal, he’d return to his regular brand of evil, which involves sneaking into the Catacombs and glaring at me in the dining hall, instead of this new, confusing, and infinitely more scary kind of evil.

I try to catch him off guard with the first healing spell, **You’re the bee’s knees** , while he’s napping. Unfortunately, he’s not actually asleep, just engrossed in his French textbook with his back to me. He launches off his bed and grabs my wand as soon as I mutter the spell.

“What the hell are you up to? Was trying to murder me once this month not enough for you?”

I don’t really know what he’s on about, but I’m still glad to have gotten a rise out of him. “I can’t murder you in our room, Baz.”

“You can try to do magic on me, which would have the same effect.”

He’s said something in that vein at least once a week since we became roommates, so I don’t know why this time, I feel like my throat’s closing up. Suddenly, all I can think about is going off last spring, when Penny and I had been kidnapped by the Humdrum, how he had my face, how I was touching Penny when he teleported me away, how I almost killed her - 

“Snow. Snow, you need to calm down.” Baz is looking at me with a strange expression. “You’re leaking magic.”

I nod and swallow, trying to rein myself in, pull the magic back inside of me. I can’t believe I almost went off because Baz made a snarky comment. It’s been years since that’s happened. The school would be ashes otherwise.

I’m so upset that I try to shove Baz, but he grabs my wrists before I can. “Crowley, Snow, what’s gotten into you?”

He doesn’t even sound angry, just confused. It’s worse.

“Fuck,” I respond, pulling my hands away and running them through my face and hair. “Nothing, you ungrateful git. I was just trying to help you with your knee.”

Baz furrows his brow. “You were...trying to help me?”

I jut my chin forward to punctuate my glare. “Yes, you arsehole. You’ve been so bloody suspicious with that limp. At first I thought you were faking it, but then I saw you doing that thing with your jaw. You know, when you act like it doesn’t hurt.”

Baz’s eyebrows are inching towards his widow’s peak, so I replay my words in my head. I guess without any of the context in between, it does sound a bit mental. I add, “And you can’t play football, which is a disaster for the team.”

Baz sneers. I’ve already started to walk away from him, so I have to whip my head back around when he says, “Okay, fine.”

I open my mouth, but Baz raises his hand. “Don’t push me, Snow. At this point I’m willing to try just about anything. And at least if you end up hurting me, the Anathema will expel you, and I’ll have some peace in my final year.”

I’m too excited to care about the insult. I grab the napkin with my notes on it, shake out a couple of crumbs, and hand it to Baz. He holds it delicately between his thumb and forefinger, looking disgusted.

“Your handwriting is illegible, Snow. Are you sure you’ll even cast the right spells?”

“Yes,” I insist, though now that I’m taking a second look, I’m not sure if some of the _c_ ’s are meant to be _e_ ’s. “Lay on your bed so I can get to your knee.”

Baz doesn’t take his eyes off me, even as he leans back against the pillows. Instead of laying back all the way, he sits up just enough so he can glower at me. I point my wand and hold his knee in place.

Since **You’re the bee’s knees** didn’t work, I try something more powerful. Taking a deep breath, I cast **What wound did ever heal but by degrees** and brace myself for something to explode. That doesn’t happen, but Baz’s knee gets warmer under my hand, and I jump back with a whoop. “Yes! Did it work?”

Baz rolls his eyes. “No, Snow. It’s more like you set a hot water bottle on it.”

I try to be encouraged by that, in spite of Baz’s tone. On my second try, I gather up the full force of my magic and think about channeling it through my wand. **“What wound did ever heal but by degrees!”**

Baz’s breath catches and he bolts up from his lying position. Too late, I realize that I’m pushing my magic out of my hand, not my wand. Before I can pull away, Baz grabs his wand and casts **Get well soon!**

He’s breathing heavily, like he’s just run up the stairs. His gaze is fixed on his knee. At first I think he’s hurt, but when I clear my throat, he looks up like he’s only just noticing me.

“Snow. What did you do?”

I hold up my wand and shrug. Baz pushes it aside. “It wasn’t your wand, you imbecile. Your hand. You pushed your magic into me.”

He runs a hand through his hair and his breaths slow down. “Everyone I know has been trying that spell. I’ve probably had it cast on me a hundred times in the past two weeks. Your power made me amplify the spell... That’s unheard of, Snow.”

I break into a grin. I can’t help it - he’s too excited to even be mean right now. I knew Baz was a nerd, but I didn’t realize how much. 

“So did I fix your knee? Is it better?”

He pauses for a second, like he’s already forgotten why we did this in the first place, then looks down and wiggles his leg a bit.

“Oh, the knee - I suppose. It’s not back to normal by any means.”

“Then we have to keep going. **Get well soon** is a durability spell, right? So it’ll work better if I just keep, y’know. Pushing.”

Baz looks impressed that I even know what a durability spell is, which annoys me to no end. (I’ve had **Get well soon** cast on me at least a thousand times. I know how it works.) My mounting irritation is why I don’t think twice before sitting down on Baz’s bed.

He startles, then his expression devolves into pure murder. Before he can say anything, I put my hand back on his bad knee and push my magic into it, more gently this time. A slow current to maintain the strength of the healing spell.

I think Baz’s knee must hurt like hell, because he immediately relaxes at my magic. He’s wearing school trousers, so I can’t see what his knee looks like. We don’t change in front of each other, and if he’s not practising with the football team, I never catch a glimpse of more than his ankles. I wonder if it’s bruised. I wonder if vampires can get bruises.

I look back up and see that Baz’s eyes have closed. It’s not like him to let his guard down around me. I wonder if his knee hurts so badly that he hasn’t been sleeping. The thought makes my stomach twist in knots.

“Baz,” I murmur. “What hurt you?”

His eyes fly open. “I never confirmed that I was hurt.”

Crowley. Even when I’m trying to be nice, he just has to be so difficult. I press on anyway, because he can’t exactly escape my questions.

“You never got hurt so badly that spells wouldn’t heal you before. It must have been a nasty fight. Were you training? With the Old Families, to battle the Mage?”

Baz bolts up and shoves my hand away. The calm on his face is gone in a flash. “Is that what this is about, Snow? Pretending to care about my well-being to get intel for your precious Mage?”

I grit my teeth. “I’m not pretending! Only you could be so - ugh - about all this-”

Baz sneers. “Get out, Snow. I don’t need your help. And tell the Mage that his plan failed. I made it back to Watford, and all he’s done is destroy our chances in football.”

“You think the _Mage_ did this?” I shove myself off Baz’s bed. “Are you insane?”

“I know he did,” Baz snaps. “And don’t pretend you weren’t in on it.”

I feel my magic bubbling to the surface, the calm I’d restored evaporating. Physically, I’m ready to boil over; mentally, I’m exhausted by the ups and downs of this interaction. I storm out of the room and slam the door behind me.

I don’t understand why Baz has to be like this. Why he always has an agenda. Why he can’t just tell me the truth for once. He always goes for the lowest possible blow, even when I’m trying to be civil.

Accusing the Mage - accusing _me_ \- of doing this to him…

I find myself at the edge of the Wavering Wood, hacking at a tree with my sword. The dryads usually come and yell at me for this, but I reckon I can get a few good hits in before they catch me.

I haven’t hurt Baz, not since fifth year. After the incident with Phillipa, fistfights just seemed...childish. We’ve been saving it up, I suppose, for the big showdown. Which will be pretty shite if Baz can barely stand up for it.

Crowley, if I can’t handle Baz with a limp, I don’t know how I’m going to kill him.

It felt good to soothe Baz’s pain. To use my power without having to hurt someone. Like I was capable of more than just hacking a goblin’s head off or blowing up worsegers.

I think about the tension in Baz’s jaw when he walks to class, the stiffness with which he gets up from his chair when a class ends. I hate seeing him like this. He’s supposed to be untouchable. Swift and brutal as a bolt of lightning. He isn’t supposed to get hurt. Not really. Not in a way that matters.

As the dryad materialises, ready to berate me, I run back in the direction of the Moat. I wave my sword in a gesture that I hope conveys apology. She doesn’t look impressed.

Baz is reading on his bed when I burst back into our room. He doesn’t look up, even when I march over to him and stand over his bed.

“Baz. Stop being an idiot.”

He finally meets my eyes. “So I’ve been telling you for years.”

“Look, I don’t know what happened to you, but I didn’t have anything to do with it,” I entreat. “Just let me help you.”

He slams his book closed and sets it on the bedside table. “Why, Snow? Because of your incessant need to be the hero? In case you missed it, we’re on opposite sides of a war. What could you possibly want from this?”

“I don’t want anything!” I bellow, pulling my curls in frustration. “Crowley - I just. I just don’t like seeing you like this. I don’t know why, okay? I know we’re supposed to fight, but I don’t care. I don’t want to hurt you, Baz. I wasn’t behind...whatever happened to you.”

Baz just stares at me through my outburst. For once, I’m the one who’s left him speechless. I take the opportunity to sit down on his bed again.

“I just want to know what happened to you,” I breathe, more to myself than anything. I hover my hand over his knee, not sure if I can still touch him. “Can - can I?”

Baz looks a bit stricken. He nods, and I put my hand back on him. This time, as my magic flows, I massage circles around Baz’s kneecap, like I do to myself after a bruising battle.

It’s silent, just the sound of our breathing, until Baz finally speaks.

“I was kidnapped. At the end of the summer.”

My hand clenches into a fist around his trouser leg. “By who?”

“Numpties.” He looks mortified, as if he’s expecting me to mock him. Which, well. It is shocking. 

“I didn’t realize that numpties were violent?”

He chuckles darkly. “Not usually. Not unless someone convinces them to be.”

“And that’s how you hurt your leg?”

“Excellent deduction,” Baz sneers. I ignore his sarcasm for once, unsure what to say. After a pause, he continues, his voice low. “I injured it when they dragged me away. While I was held captive, it didn’t heal properly. There were...space constraints.”

“How long did they have you?”

Baz sighs. “A week. My aunt Fiona found me. I barely made it back for eighth year.”

My stomach is churning. I feel nauseous. A _week_.

“I would have helped. Why didn’t she ask me to help?”

“Because you hate me?” Baz scoffs.

My hand that is rubbing circles into Baz’s knee stills. _That doesn’t mean I want you to suffer_. That’s what I mean to say. What comes out is, “I don’t hate you.”

It comes as a revelation, although I guess it shouldn’t. All I’ve done for the past week is worry about Baz. Why he’s acting off. How he got hurt. What I could do to make it better.

Baz raises one eyebrow in the way that I’m always jealous of. “That’s news to me, Snow.”

“I don’t,” I assert. “I just - everyone expects us to have this huge blowup eighth year. That’s what I’ve been told since I started at Watford. That we’re like, destined enemies.” I squeeze my eyes shut to resist as I feel them tear up. This, the final battle with Baz, is one of the top things on my Do Not Think list lately. “Baz, I’ve never killed a person. And if I were going to, it wouldn’t be you. I mean, I’ve slept next to you for eight years.”

Saying it that way, just stating the facts plainly, I realize how ridiculous it all sounds. That the Mage and the Old Families expect me to fight Baz. To maybe kill him. As if I’m a weapon and not an eighteen-year-old boy.

I’m not naive enough to hope that saying this will change anything between us. We can still hate each other, but I want it in the regular way, like how Penny hates Trixie. No one expects Penny to off Trixie after our Leavers’ Ceremony. (Although Penny would mind less than she ought to.)

“I don’t want to kill you either,” Baz whispers, his voice strained, as if it pains him to say it. I haven’t been able to look him in the eye since I started getting emotional. When I do, I’m surprised. He looks different than I expected. He looks - soft. His lips quirk upward. “My plan was always to let you kill me.”

I feel like the floor has opened up beneath me, and I’m just falling through the levels of Mummers. He sounds so _sure_. Like his early death is inevitable. I’m the same way, I suppose. I barely expect to see the other side of eighteen. But that’s different, because I have to fight the Humdrum. Baz doesn’t.

It angers me so much to hear Baz talk about himself dying at my hand, as if he’s accepted it. As if he deserves it.

Before I know what I’m doing, I fall into the bed. I lay down next to Baz and all of a sudden my arms are around him. It’s weird. We don’t hug unless it’s a headlock.

But Baz hasn’t punched me yet. Instead, he turns towards me. Both of us sharing a pillow. My arms around his shoulders. I can’t look away from his eyes.

It’s weird. It’s also so good.

I’ve never held anyone like this, not Penny, not even Agatha before we broke up. I don’t think I realized how starved I was to just...touch.

Maybe that’s all this ever was. The fighting. The burning intensity. Maybe we didn’t know any other way until this very moment.

I try to reach my hand back down to his knee, but he’s too tall, so I settle on stroking his thigh. “Is it better?” I ask. “Did I make it better?” I sound pathetic, but I need to hear it. I want to do this one thing that’s good. I want to know that I’m good for more than just killing.

“Always,” he breathes.

We lean in at the same moment, and then we’re kissing, and it feels incredible. If I thought touching Baz was good, this is so much better. This feels like the fires of my rage and frustration and sadness and fear are being doused by the cool movement of his mouth. Like everything inside me that’s burning is soothed by his touch.

I don’t think Baz knows how to kiss, but I like that too. I like being better than him at this one thing, when he’s better than me at everything else. I like the way that he lets me take the lead, the soft surprised gasp he makes when I part his lips with my tongue. The way he comes alive beneath me, as if each motion of my lips is something wondrous. When he tangles his fingers in my hair and pulls me closer, it’s so tender I could cry.

It’s been a long summer. I thought it would never end. This was the summer I thought that I would finally fade away, that I would become completely invisible. That the loneliness and hunger and desperation inside of me would completely swallow me up, and I would disappear.

I don’t think I could ever be invisible to Baz. I’ve felt his gaze burning me since the day that we met. The tug of his hands in my hair, the firm coolness of his body, the insistent push of his lips - I feel grounded. Like we’re both safe, both _here_ , as long as we’re wrapped up in each other.

When we finally stop kissing, the moon is out and we’ve both missed dinner. Baz has warmed beneath my touch. His pale skin is flushed pink in the moonlight. I hold his hand to my lips and kiss his knuckles.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

“You did,” he whispers. “The only thing that kept me going was the thought of coming back to you.”

I think of my long summer in care. The hot nights on hard beds, the glares and fists, the constant gnawing hunger. The visions of the Humdrum every time I closed my eyes.

Baz’s hair is as soft as I’d always imagined it would be. I run my fingers through it as I confess, “Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! I haven't written in a long time, so any comments/suggestions/critique are deeply appreciated :)


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